British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 41 No 3 2010 502–511

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00974.x

Learning spaces, learning environments and the

dis‘placement’ of learning

Herbert Thomas

Herbert Thomas is Head of the Division e-Learning in the Centre for Higher Education Studies and
Development at the University of the Free State in South Africa. He has experience in teaching English at
secondary school and higher education levels and is currently the coordinator of masters’ level modules
on e-learning. His main research interest is on the design and implementation of virtual learning envi-
ronments. Address for correspondence: Dr Herbert E. Thomas, Centre for Higher Education Studies and
Development, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa. Email: thomash.rd@
ufs.ac.za

Abstract
Traditionally, at least according to popular wisdom, learning took place in
venues that were custom-designed for the purpose. The purpose, given the
evidence of the artefacts with which we are confronted, seems to have been the
educational equivalent of the production line that so succinctly characterised
the industrialisation of society. One consequence of this design logic, however,
is that learning is defined as something that is married to a ‘place’. This paper
will argue that the conceptual ‘slippage’ that characterises the disappearing
differences between ‘learning spaces’ and ‘learning environments’, coupled
with the further ‘displacement’ of the learner (turned avatar) in virtual spaces
such as Facebook and Second Life, serves to ‘displace’ learning itself. The paper
argues further that we have failed to recognise the primacy of ‘physical situ-
atedness’ to our conceptions of learning itself. In short, our difficulty in under-
standing and articulating the nature of learning is partly brought about by our
inability to articulate where learning takes place—in a world characterised by
virtual space and electronic selves. If we are to articulate the nature of learn-
ing in our age, then we need to articulate the nature of the real and virtual
spaces and bodies that we inhabit.

Learning spaces: definitions of learning embodied

Traditional learning spaces, in the form of classrooms and lecture halls, are integrally
linked to specific teaching, learning and management strategies which, taken together,
embody a specific approach to teaching and learning. But perhaps the most striking
example of such embodiment is to be found in the nature of the learning spaces them-
selves. These learning spaces are not only an embodiment of specific definitions of
learning and specific learning strategies. Physical, brick-and-mortar learning spaces
© 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Becta. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ,
UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
 Learning spaces 503

have a lifespan that easily outlasts the definitions and learning theories of which they
are an embodiment. In this sense, they contribute to the ‘inertia’ (Weller, 2007, p. 154)
associated with the face-to-face lecture by actively constraining the kinds of learning
that they make possible via the limited affordances that characterise them.

The influences of traditional brick-and-mortar learning spaces do not, however, end

there. Long and Ehrmann (2005, p. 42) point out that students who were taught in
such spaces carry with them a conception of the ‘broadcast-model’ of learning. This
conception is coupled with sensory memories and, perhaps more importantly, ‘powerful
emotional responses’ that continue to affect them cognitively and behaviourally
(Graetz, 2006, p. 62).

Such conceptions and responses need not be negative, but may involve positive emo-
tional responses that lead to ‘enhanced learning’ and a powerful ‘emotional attach-
ment’ to the particular learning space (Graetz, 2006, p. 62). In this sense, the physical
learning environment becomes an integral part of the learning process and is capable
of influencing students in powerful ways long after the physical learning space has been
left behind.

Learning spaces and the imprisonment of learning

Current approaches to teaching and learning emphasise the importance of student
engagement (Graetz, 2006, p. 68) in the form of active, meaningful involvement in the
learning process. In this regard, physical environments ‘are increasingly recognized as
the “containers” that give context to group interactions’ (Milne, 2007, p. 18). For this
reason, the design of physical learning spaces and learning environments (as well as the
interior set-up and furnishings) becomes a process that needs to be mediated by the direct
involvement of learning design practitioners. In essence, traditional classrooms and
lecture halls do not provide the affordances that encourage engaged learning. This does
not mean that engaged learning is impossible in such spaces, rather, the argument here
is that engaged learning is an emergent property of learning spaces and environments
that are designed to provide affordances that actively encourage such engagement.

The design of traditional learning spaces proceeded from the assumption that learning
is largely confined to such formal spaces. Current views on learning acknowledge that
much, if not most, learning does not occur in formally designated learning spaces
(Cross, 2007), but rather, in informal spaces not necessarily originally envisaged as
learning spaces. This realisation lies at the heart of liberating learning from a form of
physical imprisonment. Concomitantly, there is the realisation among higher education
practitioners and planners that the university campus as a whole is a learning space
and that this concept has significant implications for the design of all campus spaces,
specifically informal areas (Calhoun, 2006; JISC, 2006).

Learning spaces, learning environments and informal learning

In a paper titled ‘Designing spaces for effective learning’, the JISC (2006) organisation
envisions aspects of campus space design that impact directly on the kind of learning

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we wish to take place in the 21st century. Its point of departure is that this kind of
learning involves the fostering of ‘truly flexible, creative and adaptable minds’ and that
this implies the evaluation of learning space designs and the extent to which these
‘promote innovative ways of thinking’ (JISC, p. 14). The report, furthermore, suggests
that the design of learning spaces, in addition to fostering the development of such
higher order skills, should also become ‘a physical representation of the institution’s
vision and strategy for learning’ (JISC, p. 2).

The physical representation of such qualities should find expression in the design of
buildings that house spaces that are:
• flexible—to accommodate both current and evolving pedagogies;
• future-proofed—to enable space to be re-allocated and reconfigured;
• bold—to look beyond tried and tested pedagogies;
• creative—to energise and inspire learners and tutors;
• supportive—to develop the potential of all learners; and
• enterprising—to make each space capable of supporting different purposes (JISC,
2006, p. 3).
In essence, the JISC (2006) report suggests that entering a university building should fill
one with ‘a sense of excitement about learning’ (p. 8). This is only possible if, as Long
and Ehrmann (2005) suggest, ‘the scholarship of teaching is recognized as an integral
part of the planning and use of such spaces’ (p. 58). In fact, the vicarious tyranny and
imprisonment associated with the design of traditional classrooms and lecture halls
need to be replaced with the considered enablement and flexibility associated with what
Oblinger calls the enterprise of ‘built pedagogy’ (Calhoun, 2006, p. 51). This ‘built
pedagogy’ proceeds not from the same precepts as the gross ‘embodiment’ associated
with the design of traditional learning spaces but from an opposite impulse, namely ‘an
opening up of possibilities’.

One of the ways in which the concept of ‘built pedagogy’ may be illustrated is with
reference to the awakening realisation among higher education practitioners that the
‘process of creating content may be more important than the act of merely consuming
it’ (Milne, 2007, p. 18). In this regard, the emphasis shifts from educational technology
delivering high-quality content to educational technology providing opportunities for
informal content manipulation, creation and delivery. There are important implications
of this shift for learning space design. Milne, for instance, envisages group-interaction
areas that capture the process of learning and content creation, rather than the fin-
ished product only (Milne, p. 24). In this view, such spaces will have a ‘memory’ that
can be ‘captured’ and that will enable the participants to ‘save the room’ and ‘re-create
their work arrangements in the same room or in different rooms with similar affor-
dances’ (Milne, p. 24). Such ‘saved’ rooms can even be meta-tagged and made publicly
available to other groups of participants in the interests of interdisciplinary work.

Another suggestion in terms of which ‘built pedagogy’ finds a wider interpretation

is the view that the defining line between physical and virtual learning spaces will

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continue to blur. There is already a sense in which ‘it was once reasonable to think of
office as office, home as home, and hotels and airports as neither’, but today, ‘all these
environments converge as workplaces in which IT should work consistently’ (Jackson,
2007, p. 44). It is this form of learning space boundary shifting that prompts Milne
(2007, p. 20) to suggest that the ‘emerging interactive campus’ demands the position-
ing of learning spaces as ‘effective peripheral accessories to the mobile devices that
students and faculty carry with them’.

In the light of such developments, it is only reasonable to adopt a definition of ‘learning

spaces’ that includes the full range of spaces in which learning occurs, ‘from the real to
the virtual, from the classroom to the chat room’ (Johnson & Lomas, 2005, p. 20). Katz
believes that the implications of such a definition of learning spaces for planning
systems are very specific: they have to become ‘adaptive enterprises’ capable of ‘sensing
and responding’. He envisions a ‘fabric of autonomous intervention systems’ that
gather information and ‘trigger automatic interventions’ (Calhoun, 2006, p. 53). Revo-
lutionary though the concept of the ‘building operating system’ (Long & Ehrmann,
2005) might appear to be, the concept is extended even further here to suggest a
‘systemic operating system’ that incorporates both physical- and virtual-integrated
embedded technologies. In a sense, the ‘adaptive enterprise’ takes on some of the char-
acteristics of a living organism.

Virtual learning spaces

Physical learning spaces, both formal and informal, will thus be evaluated and recon-
figured. This process will go hand-in-hand with the blurring of the boundary between
physical and virtual spaces. Once virtual learning spaces are viewed in the same light as
physical learning spaces, these spaces will be designed with the same meticulous atten-
tion to their flexibility and enabling affordances as the attention given to physical
learning spaces (Graetz, 2006, p. 72).

At present, virtual learning spaces differ greatly in terms of the affordances that char-
acterise them. On the one hand, campus learning management systems or campus
portals are structured electronic environments that bear noticeable resemblances to
traditional learning environments. On the other hand, virtual worlds, such as Second
Life, represent electronic emulations of the multidimensional natural world. Social
applications such as Facebook and MySpace, which are flexible, recreational environ-
ments, occupy a position somewhere between these two poles (Graetz, 2006, p. 70).

At the heart of the shift from learning management systems to social spaces lie the
affordances offered by the Internet. Although decentralisation and networking were
originally characteristics of the technological topology of the Internet, these charac-
teristics soon became ‘social features of the system’ (Weller, 2007, p. 154). Kirschner
(2004) argues further that ‘these sociable environments facilitate the emergence of a
social space: a human network of social relationships between group members’ (p. 43).

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506 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 41 No 3 2010

In this sense, social space is an emergent property enabled by social environments. Such
‘social space’ underlies conceptions of social constructivist practice, collaborative
learning and engaged learning itself.

Concepts such as ‘adaptive enterprises’, ‘emergence’ and dynamic networks’ situate the
arguments presented thus far in the context of dynamic complex systems. It comes as
no surprise, therefore, that the metaphor of the ‘ecosystem’ has come to be identified
with evolving virtual spaces (Katz in Calhoun, 2006, pp. 51–52) as such evolution
takes on some of the characteristics of autopoetic living systems (Maturana & Varela,
1987; Rocha, 1998) that develop, to some extent, beyond the influence of human
design.

The concept of ‘adaptive enterprises’ might be illuminated further with brief reference
to online self-organising social systems (OSOSSs). In the online context, self-organising
social structures allow large numbers of individuals ‘to self-organize in a highly decen-
tralised manner in order to solve problems and accomplish other goals’ (Wiley &
Edwards, 2002). Perhaps the most striking examples of such OSOSSs are the many
virtual worlds currently found on the Internet, of which Second Life is arguably the most
well known. The existence of such systems is made possible by a particular kind of
web-based software architecture that is characterised by the decentralisation of man-
agement functionality (Wiley & Edwards). Such decentralisation foregrounds the estab-
lishment of personally motivated network-like links between individual users rather
than hierarchical structure. As such, the resultant network topology is unpredictable as
it is a consequence of a multitude of individually motivated links, rather than central or
hierarchical control and management. In this vein, for example, exchanges on Twitter
resemble the vicarious, terse banter found around the water cooler or vending machine
in brick-and-mortar offices. Similarly, the use of personal spaces and personal links on
Facebook resemble the exchange of business cards, personal contact details and pleas-
antries in physical spaces or over landline telephones.

Within OSOSSs, individual participants will be guided by their own preferences and
priorities when accessing content. Such individual behaviour is thus fairly ordered and
predictable, but the behaviour of the system as a whole, in terms of the ways in which
participants interact with content at the macro-level, is a lot more complex and less
predictable. The discontinuity between the two is partly explicated by the fact that the
actions of individual participants are situated within personal contexts, possibly even
personal learning contexts. The fact of the matter is that such OSOSSs maintain them-
selves and preserve their identity at the same time. In this sense, they are autopoetic
(Wiley & Edwards, 2002).

Within such environments, however, individual actions are purposeful, guided as they
are by personal motivations. These personal actions are undertaken electronically in a
number of different ways, ranging from a type of personal electronic signature such as
an Internet Protocol address, email address or static graphic representation (digital
photograph) to fully-fledged three-dimensional ‘electronic selves’ in the form of virtual

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 Learning spaces 507

world avatars. Such avatars are distinguished by their three-dimensional, life-like

appearance and, more importantly, by their persistence after their real-world creators
have exited the virtual world concerned. It is thus possible for the real-world creator of
multiple avatars to be present in a physical learning environment while multiple elec-
tronic selves inhabit a number of virtual learning spaces at the same time. Let us
assume, for a moment, that such ‘electronic selves’ or avatars are imbued with the
qualities of strong AI neural networks and thus are able to change their interactions on
the basis of experience. Connectivists (see ensuing paragraphs) might argue that such
avatars are ‘learning’. In this sense, it is not only learning that is displaced, but more
significantly, learners themselves.

Against this background, Milne (2007) argues that student interaction in virtual
worlds, such as Second Life, takes place through avatars in an artificial world, ‘thus
circumventing the in situ learning and interaction that takes place in real life’ (p. 14).
This argument tacitly assumes that there is a definite disjunction between ‘physical
reality’ and ‘virtual reality’, and that learning that takes place in ‘physical spaces’ is
necessarily more valuable than learning that takes place in ‘virtual spaces’. The under-
lying proposition is that ‘learning’ is a unitary concept, teleologically directed at satis-
fying the demands of a ‘physical work environment’. The first, and most obvious, point
to be made is that the job market itself is becoming increasingly ‘virtualized’. In addi-
tion, the existing literature indicates very clearly that boundaries between physical and
virtual spaces will continue to blur as embedded technologies and augmented realities
become more commonplace. Physical and virtual spaces will thus increasingly repre-
sent the same fabric. Finally, conceptions of a unitary concept of ‘learning’ are being
challenged, most vociferously by advocates of connectivism.

Connectivism and radical discontinuity

Connectivism is presented by Siemens (2004) as ‘a learning theory for the digital age’
and is defined as the ‘integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and com-
plexity and self-organization theories’. Before elaborating on the connectivist view of
learning, it might be helpful to consider, briefly, connectivist conceptions of the kinds
of networks that learn and the ways in which these networks relate to ‘connective
knowledge’.

Siemens defines an ecology as a dynamic, continually evolving, system that reacts to

both external and internal changes. Within such ecologies or organised domains of
knowledge, individual learners pursue their own objectives, albeit through the nodes
and connections that make up the networks that are encouraged to flourish within the
particular ecology (Siemens, 2005). The knowledge that flows through these networks
can be described as distributed knowledge or connective knowledge. It is distributed
because it is a characteristic of integrated networks, and it is ‘connective’ knowledge
because it specifically involves knowledge of the connections that characterise these
networks (Downes, 2005). Downes argues further that the interpretation of such
connective knowledge is itself a definition of emergence (Downes). He elucidates
such emergence by describing it, essentially, as the inference of common properties

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(qualities, quantities and connections) from the observation of ‘salient similarities

among thoughts and perceptions’ (Downes). Emergence, thus characterised, is nothing
other than a perception of meaning or knowledge, and if the ‘human mind can come to
“know”, and if the human mind is essentially a network, then any network can come to
know, and for that matter, so can society’ (Downes).

The merits of connectivism as a learning theory are addressed elsewhere (Thomas,

2008) and are really tangentially related to the topic of this argument. What is relevant
to this argument is the way in which connectivism views learning.

In Siemens’ (2004) formulation of connectivism, learning is defined as ‘a process that

occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements—not entirely under the
control of the individual’. Siemens argues further that ‘learning (defined as actionable
knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database)’ and
that learning ‘is focused on connecting specialized information sets’ (Siemens, 2004).
This definition of learning recognises the fluid, multifaceted (Siemens, 2003) qualities
of learning and represents a radical departure from traditional conceptions of learning
as a unitary, exclusively internalised process. In this view, there are different ‘types’ of
learning defined by their utility in terms of, for example, their enablement of simple task
completion or shaping our thinking (Siemens, 2003).

Learning thus defined takes place in a learning ecology that ‘fosters and supports’ the
creation of communities and that is ‘consistent with ... how learners learn’ (Siemens,
2003). Furthermore, a learning ecology is an ‘open system, dynamic and interdepen-
dent, diverse, partially self-organizing, adaptive and fragile’—one which includes: ‘a
collection of overlapping communities of interest; cross-pollination with each other; and
constant evolution’ (Siemens). The communities themselves are ‘clusterings of similar
areas of interest’, and the learning community is comprised of different spaces: ‘each
space addresses a type of learning, as well as a stage in the learning process’ (Siemens).

In this view, space and learning are inextricably linked, such that the space in which a
particular type of learning takes place is an integral part of the definition of that
particular kind of learning. The argument is consistent with some of the principles
associated with adaptive complex systems, because the particular kind of learning that
takes place in a particular space (adaptive, complex and dynamic as it is) is an emergent
property of that space. In terms of the design of learning spaces, this means, first, that
we cannot design a space specifically ‘for learning’ as the ‘kinds of learnings’ that can
take place in a particular space are emergent properties of that space. The second
implication is, perhaps, even more fundamental to the education enterprise: if ‘learn-
ings’ are emergent properties of particular learning spaces, then there can be no ‘finite’
definition of learning(s), as new definitions will emerge as new learning spaces, com-
munities and ecologies evolve.

Designing spaces for ‘learnings’

If ‘learnings’ are emergent properties of learning spaces and learning ecologies, then
the position of learning space planners becomes invidious: learning spaces have to be

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 Learning spaces 509

planned on the strength that different kinds of learning will only emerge once these
spaces are used by students. In short, learning spaces will be designed in the knowledge
that the full range of the types of learning that they enable cannot be envisaged at the
outset. Ironically, this is already the case, but planners have, in the past, preferred to
revert to the planning of spaces that embody traditional conceptions of learning rather
than contemplate the demands of planning for complex adaptive learning ecologies.

The first requirement for complex learning space design has to be a re-engineering of
the design process. Consider traditional approaches to course design at the higher
education institutions of yesteryear. The point of departure used to be the content that
had to be covered over the course of a semester. In pursuance of this primary objective,
teaching and learning strategies, assessment strategies and other resources were put in
place. In latter-day outcomes-based course planning, the achievement of course out-
comes is the primary objective, and the selection of teaching and learning strategies,
assessment strategies and the use of resources are designed to enable achievement of
the course outcomes. In effect, the covering of certain ‘content’ becomes, at best, a
secondary consideration. In the same way, the ‘structure of the learning space’ cannot
be the point of departure in the planning process. We can only plan for complex
learning ecologies if the planning of the learning space becomes peripheral to the
planning of the structure of the adaptive enterprise and the learning ecologies that it
nurtures. In effect, the ‘structure of the learning space’ has to be a function of the
adaptive complex system that it serves.

The second requirement, already mentioned above, stems from the first. If the learning
ecology is viewed as a complex adaptive system, then learning spaces need to be adap-
tive, malleable—almost fluid. The recommendations made in the JISC (2006, p. 3)
report regarding the affordances to be enabled by such learning spaces provide a start-
ing point for such planning—with the proviso that these affordances characterise
physical as well as virtual learning spaces.

The third requirement relates to the kinds of skills envisaged for the workforce of the
future. Critical thinking skills in increasingly complex environments are essential skills
for the knowledge workers of the future (Katz in Calhoun, 2006, p. 52). Such workers
will inhabit environments where ‘multiple truths’ are commonplace and conceptions of
a ‘unitary truth’ are foreign. This in itself poses significant challenges for learning space
or learning ecology designers. In addition, knowledge workers with exceptional skills
relating to working in online interdisciplinary teams will have been trained in learning
ecologies that enable the emergence of such skills (Long & Ehrmann, 2005, p. 48).
Herein lies an even greater challenge for learning ecology planners and designers.

Alhough these requirements appear daunting in the extreme, there are ways in which
planning approaches might be adapted in order to address these challenges in new
ways. Kaplan and Kaplan (cited in Graetz, 2006, p. 73) suggest four cognitive determi-
nants of environmental preference:

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510 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 41 No 3 2010

• coherence, or the ease with which a setting can be organised cognitively;

• complexity, or the perceived capacity of the setting to occupy interest and stimulate
activity;
• legibility, or perceived ease of use; and
• mystery, or the perception that entering the setting would lead to increased learning,
interaction or interest (Graetz, 2006, pp. 73–74).
Coherence, complexity and legibility are cognitive attributes familiar to most planners,
but ‘mystery’ places the planning and design of learning ecologies, partly, in the realm
of art and wrests the locus of control from the traditional conception of learning space
planning as the exclusive province of architects and physical facility planners. This
view is further extended by Graetz (2006, p. 74), who pleads for the design of learning
environments that are just as ‘enchanting’ as ‘works of art, musical performances and
breathtaking landscapes’. What makes these artefacts ‘enchanting’ is their ‘situated-
ness’ within cognitive, affective, social, cultural, historical and philosophical contexts.
In current approaches to the planning and design of learning spaces, few planners
move beyond cognitive and affective contexts. For learning ecologies to be truly
enchanting, they need to be both the adaptive processes and the artefacts of the full
range of cognitive, affective, social, cultural, historical and philosophical contexts with
which they interact.

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